


Good Mother, Sonia Kaspbrak

by minkit



Category: IT (2017), IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Emotional Abuse, Homophobia, M/M, Medical Abuse, Sonia Kaspbrak is not a good mother, Sonia POV, canon IT, canon typical sonia kaspbrak
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-15
Updated: 2019-10-15
Packaged: 2020-12-17 05:08:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21048809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minkit/pseuds/minkit
Summary: Sonia Kaspbrak hated Richie Tozier.





	Good Mother, Sonia Kaspbrak

Sonia Kaspbrak hated Richie Tozier from the first moment that she laid eyes on him. She didn’t make it a habit of hating children, and perhaps she would be deemed what others believed to be “overprotective”, but she had very good reasons to be. Eddie was a fragile child. He always had been and once his father had gotten sick and passed, Sonia was the only one there to care for him. They didn’t have any other family and Eddie was her only child and was it really so wrong of her that she didn’t want him to get hurt or ill?

Maybe she could take it a bit overboard, but it was better to be safe than sorry, she always said, and Eddie was learning the dangers of the world. He was learning to be careful and take care of himself; now wasn’t that a good thing?

Her son had always been a good child. He followed her instruction, took his vitamins and pills whenever she told him to, no questions asked because mama said it would help him be healthier. He was wary of doing things that could end in him getting scraped up--she would never want him to end up with some sort of infection, she didn’t even like riding him a bike, but she understood the necessity of it. Unfortunately, as he got older, she wouldn’t be able to drive him everywhere as much as she wished that she could. 

Those first six or so years of Eddie’s life were the absolute best. Her son was an angel and she loved him and he loved her and it was their own little family that she would protect on her life. Never would Sonia let her boy escape her sight. 

And then he entered elementary school and things began to change. She didn’t so much mind Bill and Stan. Both were polite boys, well-behaved, and obviously came from good families. Bill’s parents had a bit more money and Stan’s father worked at the synagogue and would probably become the next rabbi from what she had heard. They were good people. 

But that Richie Tozier… Sonia wasn’t so sure about him.

At first he seemed okay, curly dark hair and glasses almost too big for his face, he was even actually kind of adorable, and obviously he liked her Eddie so at least he had good taste in friends. But the ‘okay’ only lasted for so long before she started realizing what Richie really was.

A negative influence on her boy.

Eddie was half-way into his kindergarten year the first time that he came home with a scrape on his arm, sniffling, but trying to hide it, but Sonia was no dummy. She demanded to see what had happened and when she saw the scrape she grabbed her keys and ran her child to the car and spent the next seven hours in the emergency room to make sure that Eddie didn’t have any broken bones or anything. 

He was okay, thankfully, just some scrapes and bruises. Apparently Richie had dared him to swing on the monkey-bars even though Sonia had told Eddie that was a good way to break his neck, and the next thing Eddie knew, he’d fallen off the monkey bars and onto the ground and gotten banged up. 

Sonia was livid and half a mind to call the Tozier household and lecture them on letting their son influence her boy, but she controlled herself. Barely. Eddie was seven now and boys will be boys as much as she tried to fight it. These things were bound to happen. But she didn’t want them happening again and made Eddie promise he would stay off the monkey bars.

As far as she knew, he did and she couldn’t be happier. 

And then there was that time Richie stayed the night and, Sonia being Sonia, had to make sure that they were behaving. So she kept a listen at Eddie’s door and they were eight and what does she hear? Richie teaching her son to say disgusting, horrible words that she had never dreamed would come out of her son’s mouth! 

For that, she definitely called the Tozier household. His parents, who seemed like nice enough people, were incredibly apologetic, saying that they had no idea where their son had learned such things and he would be disciplined. 

Sonia had a talk with Eddie and told him that saying such things would be a straight ticket to Hell. Now, Sonia wasn’t so sure she was really a stickler on all that Heaven and Hell stuff, but if it got Eddie to stop saying things like that, or doing things like that, then she would drill it into his head. 

Saying nasty words is a sin, Eddie. Don’t let any girls touch you, Eddie, you don’t know where they’ve been. Becoming a homosexual will give you AIDS, Eddie, and then you die. 

These were only a few choice things that she taught her son and she was proud, because Eddie sat there and absorbed all of it, looking absolutely terrified and she knew, knew, that her son was learning well. Her son would grow up to be a wonderful person, and she had faith in that.

To be completely honest, Sonia had hoped that eventually Eddie would see how bad of an influence Richie was and drop him as a friend completely, but that didn’t happen and the older that Eddie got, the less she started to see of him.

It was hard to say that she was jealous, but she was. She hated that her baby boy was being taken from her by a rowdy group of boys, especially that one. Sonia wasn’t deaf, she could still hear the profanity that spewed from her son’s mouth when he was talking on the phone with that one. He was eleven the first time he entered the house smelling like cigarettes and she had yelled at him, asking him if he wanted to get lung cancer and die or get a hole in his chest, and he had defended himself, saying that it wasn’t even his it was Richie who--

Richie. She called his parents again and told them what her son said and that was the last she heard or saw of Richie for a good month. She thought that it was finally over, whether her son dumped him or he dumped her son, she didn’t care, their friendship was done and she was glad for it.

And then Richie showed up one afternoon, begging to speak to Eddie and she was about to turn him away when Eddie walked out of his room and she, against her better judgement, let the little twerp in.

Minutes later they were laughing and sounded like they were wrestling and playing and profanity spilled from Eddie’s mouth for the first time in a month and… 

Sonia Kaspbrak hated Richie Tozier.

To her utter annoyance, it actually seemed as if Richie and Eddie were closer after their brief halt in friendship. She put up with it, biting her tongue and staring as Richie made jokes that she’d really rather not be uttered around her son. He didn’t say them directly to her, but she knew if she mentioned it to her son, he’d be upset and angry and refuse to talk to her all night, so she would bide her time, wait for something more than Richie Tozier’s filthy little mouth to end their friendship.

And then she got it. 

They were thirteen and had started hanging out around a couple of other boys and that disgusting girl that Sonia had heard all of those rumors about. She knew what boys did with her, and she had to admit she was worried that her good boy would also get up to things he shouldn’t even know about with the little slut, but she trusted her Eddie. Eddie wouldn’t do that. And then Eddie came home with a broken arm and she had had enough.

This was the final straw. Her boy was banged up and dirty and crying and his arm was practically falling off of his body and she didn’t want her child around these little monsters any longer--not a single one of them, especially not that slut and especially not Richie. She just knew those two were the most to blame, she could feel it in her gut.

And, this time, her Eddie Bear listened to her. He stayed away from those bad influences and stayed in the house where he was safe. He spent time with her and not with his friends and yes, she could tell he was a little sad, a little bit lonely but he would get over that and eventually he would make much better friends than those mongrels. 

But the peace of mind didn’t last nearly as long when Eddie apparently discovered that all of the pills were a lie. He cursed at her and threw a bottle at her and she had never seen anything like this from her son--how could he treat his own mother that way? She had only ever been trying to protect him from the world outside. Was that really such a bad thing?

Eddie got his friends back and they were closer than ever. Sonia definitely wasn’t happy about it, but now Eddie wasn’t listening to her at all. He wasn’t taking the pills now that he knew they were fake, not even the ones that he actually needed. He was more outspoken as well, a little bit rougher with her when he spoke. She hated it. She had never seen this side of her Eddie and it made her ill. 

She couldn’t stand this part of her boy. This part that was getting corrupted and treating her like dirt when she only wanted to be a good mother.

But if she tried, she would push him completely away and Sonia knew that, so she sucked it up. She pulled back on the protectiveness and things slowly got better. Eddie loved her, of course she did, but now he was getting older and she was terrified that he was going to leave for good.

His friends stayed the same, including Richie, but he rarely brought any of them over. She assumed they went to the other’s house, but she wished they would come here, at least that way she could keep an eye on them. Once in awhile they would and Eddie would close the door and turn up music loud enough so that when she pressed her ear to the door, she couldn’t hear a sound.

It infuriated her. 

But perhaps she could get ahead of this. So she told Eddie to invite a friend for a sleepover and, surprise of all surprises, he brought over Richie. They all had dinner and Richie was shockingly well behaved, didn’t utter a single profanity, and it was strange. Yet that wasn’t the only thing that was strange.

She noticed throughout dinner the way Richie would look at her son. His eyes would linger and his fingers would brush against her boy. Eddie didn’t seem to notice, but Sonia knew exactly what it meant. It had been the way she’d been with her dearly departed husband when they had first began courting and Sonia felt an illness settle in the pit of her stomach.

Did her Eddie know? Did he know that his friend was… well, one of those? She certainly hoped not because she had taught Eddie how to stay on the right path, told him about the men who did things with other men who would then end up sick and then die. And sure, she had exaggerated illnesses with him that Eddie didn’t have, but she never once lied about the dangers of those illnesses and AIDS was a horrid thing affecting homosexuals. She wasn’t about to lose her son to something like that.

So one day she sat him down and asked him about girls. Asked him if there were any girls he was interested in and perhaps there were some daughters of her friends’ that she could set him up with. Eddie seemed to almost squirm in his seat, telling her that there wasn’t and he wasn’t really interested in dating at all and that made Sonia frown.

Before this would’ve been exactly the kind of answer that Sonia would have wanted to hear from her son but now that she knew that boy had feelings for her’s? Well, she couldn’t take the risk that they’d ever be something. It’s better that her son date a girl than a boy, at least, so she needed Eddie to work with her here.

So she didn’t give up. She’d mention it every once in awhile and she could see the exhaustion on his face when she did, but Sonia pushed and pressed and eventually Eddie gave in and let her set him up with the daughter of a friend. He took her to homecoming and they looked very cute together.

They must’ve hit it off fairly well because they dated for a couple of months and at least now Sonia knew that her son was interested in girls like normal boys and not in that bundle of profanity that was Richie Tozier.

Or so she thought. 

It was actually an accident that she walked in. She hadn’t even meant to spy, not this time. Sonia had just gotten home from a night out with her girlfriends and noticed Richie’s car parked outside. It wasn’t much of a surprise. He’d just gotten it a few weeks before and had been picking up her son for school or to hang out practically every day. At first she was slightly worried about him driving Eddie around, but she supposed that at least professionals deemed him good enough, so it couldn’t be too horrible. 

So Sonia pulled into the driveway of her house and went inside. As expected, there was no one in the living room but she could hear the sound of rock music playing from her son’s bedroom and she rolled her eyes. It was definitely Richie’s taste. Sonia didn’t like rock music much herself. People who listened to that would most certainly end up doing drugs or being alcoholics, and it didn’t surprise her one bit that was the sort of music that Richie listened to.

She walked down the hall to see how her son was doing and when she pushed open the door she could feel her heart stop in her chest and her blood run cold.

Richie was on top of her son. They both had their clothes on but their mouths were interlocked, Eddie’s arm swung around Richie’s shoulders. It took her a moment before she could even make a sound and she tossed her purse at Richie and when it hit him, he jerked backwards, glasses askew and looking as if he was in shock.

Eddie exclaimed and jumped from the bed, trying to tell her it wasn’t what it looked like but she snapped, telling her son that she wasn’t an idiot and she wanted Richie Tozier out of the house.

He abided with a look from Eddie and Sonia, fuming, locked the door behind him and contemplated calling his parents but Eddie was begging her not to, almost crying. 

So she didn’t, but she didn’t say anything else and went to her room.

The next day she said something, however. She told Eddie that he would cease all communication with Richard Tozier or else she would call his parents. He wasn’t happy but silently agreed. And she knew he was lying.

And she didn’t tell him that she had already called a real estate agent exactly for that reason. 

There was no way she would continue to have this sort of influence around her son. It wasn’t good for him. It was sick. It was making him sick, and she was his mother and she would take care of him. Sonia knew what was best for her boy, even if Eddie didn’t realize it.

Eddie wasn’t happy when he found out. He screamed and cried and threw things and Sonia was certain that he had never been more upset in his entire life. Sonia took extra care to lock Eddie in his room that night as well as the following nights, not wanting him to try to escape. It was extreme and harsh, she knew, but it was also for his own good.

Sonia only had Eddie’s well-being in mind, after all.

Richie came by a few times, looking tired and sick and begging to please let him see Eddie and it reminded her of the time when they were kids. The time she had let him come in and talk to Eddie and then they were playing and wrestling and maybe this was partially her fault. Maybe she had been too easy on Eddie. She felt sick at the idea and she glared and just continued glaring until Richie got the hint and went back to his car and drove away just as Eddie walked up behind her. 

She closed and locked the door and smiled at her son and told him that everything will be better soon. 

They moved a few weeks later and Eddie cried silent tears the entire time. She tried to pretend as if it didn’t hurt to see, but this was for his own good, for his future. He’d be much better the further away they got from Derry, Maine and she had found a beautiful town in New York that wasn’t the city, but also not too expensive. Eddie would love it there. They would both love it there.

And it was a few weeks after moving in that Sonia came home from grocery shopping. Eddie had finally gotten used to moving. It was almost like they had never lived anywhere else. Sonia was happy, her boy was doing well. They were doing well. 

She pulled the mail from the mail box. Most of it was junk but there was one letter addressed to Eddie and she stared at it. Derry, Maine, it said and for the life of her she wondered what sort of place that was. They didn’t know a Derry, Maine, had never even been to Maine as far as she could remember. It was probably junkmail, she thought to herself.

And then she tore it up and tossed it in the trash, because her son didn’t know anyone by the name of Richie Tozier.


End file.
